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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“I’ve heard that when you’re in a life-or-death situation, like a car accident or a gunfight, all your senses shoot up to almost superhuman level, everything slows down, and you’re hyper-aware of what’s happening around you. As the shuttle careens toward the earth, the exact opposite is true for me. Everything silences, even the screams and shouts from the people on the other side of the metal door, the crashes that I pray aren’t bodies, the hissing of rockets, Elder’s cursing, my pounding heartbeat. I feel nothing—not the seat belt biting into my flesh, not my clenching jaw, nothing. My whole body is numb. Scent and taste disappear. The only thing about my body that works is my eyes,and they are filled with the image before them. The ground seems to leap up at us as we hurtle toward it. Through the blurry image of the world below us, I see the outline of land—a continent. And at once, my heart lurches with the desire to know this world, to make it our home. My eyes drink up the image of the planet—and my stomach sinks with the knowledge that this is a coastline I’ve never seen before. I could spin a globe of Earth around and still be able to recognize the way Spain and Portugal reach into the Atlantic, the curve of the Gulf of Mexico, the pointy end of India. But this continent—it dips and curves in ways I don’t recognize, swirls into an unknown sea, creating peninsulas in shapes I do not know, scattering out islands in a pattern I cannot connect. And it’s not until I see this that I realize: this world may one day become our home,but it will never be the home I left behind.”

“I've heard you say so many a time That I know just the right words to say, just the right lines to rhyme... Today it's been 7 years since we last met I have learnt to say just the wrong words, just the lines you hate....”

“I’ve held on to those memories for the longest; never letting them go because it takes time – sometimes years – to truly understand how a childhood adventure can impact you. When I look back, I marvel at how surreal that day had been. It was the kind of misadventure one had only seen in the movies and in all those stories the protagonists were adults, some of whom did not make it. But we were just children, and this was happening to us. And this was as real as it could get. For years after, numerous existential questions raced through my head: Was God testing us? Were we handpicked for it? Was it preordained? Th en the fog started to lift and I saw it for what it was: a day in the jungle. Also, a day when everything went wrong. I’d read somewhere that adversity does not build character, it reveals it. We were tested, we were pushed to the limits of our physical and emotional endurance. We made it out alive, and it is important that this experience be shared.”

“I’ve just been transferred to Kanglung,” I say. They look at me to see if I am joking, and then they look at each other. There is a long, terrible silence and we all look at the floor. Karma Dorji wipes his runny nose on his sleeve and looks up. “Oh, miss,” he says sadly. “Please don’t go.” “Just a minute,” I say, and go into the bathroom. I latch the door and turn on the tap full force. When the water is running noisily, I lean my hot forehead against the damp, flaking concrete, and cry.”

“I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. I heard four speeches which I can never forget... one by that splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll, — oh, it was just the supremest combination of English words that was ever put together since the world began... How handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from his lips! What an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! How pale those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how blinding they were in the delivery! It was a great night, a memorable night. I doubt if America has seen anything quite equal to it. I am well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again... Bob Ingersoll’s music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature that ever lived... You should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; you should have heard the hurricane that followed. That's the only test! People might shout, clap their hands, stamp, wave their napkins, but none but the master can make them get up on their feet. {Twain's letter to his wife, Livy, about friend Robert Ingersoll's incredible speech at 'The Grand Banquet', considered to be one of the greatest oratory performances of all time}”

“I've just stopped talking to you. It seems so strange. It's perfectly peaceful here--they're playing bowls--I'd just put flowers in your room. And there you sit with the bombs falling around you. What can one say-- except that I love you and I've got to live through this strange quiet evening thinking of you sitting there alone. Dearest-- let me have a line... You have given me such happiness...”

“I've kept . . .treasures because fragments of . . .stories are contained in them, and I have honored that. I think of my family. Objects passed from hand to hand. Stories told, others not talked about. Dear friends and acquaintances recount stories of their own. In public places, behind walls and doors, voices rise. Stories float up and are deposited into the trunk of our collective unconscious. We have only to coax a lock to set the stories free.”

“I’ve known men who fought in wars to liberate the Jews from Hitler. I’ve known men who sewed their own buttons on their clothes. I’ve known men who talked with a lisp and wore paisley shirts, and men who could chop down trees, and run heavy equipment. Other men were more comfortable in a suit and tie, with soft hands, and a penchant for math, or words. Some men are adventurers, others prefer comic books. Masculinity has never just been one thing.”